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45 Pa. 403

Smith v. Smith

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania

Decided July 1, 1863

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania · decided 1863-07-01

This was an action on the case for defamation, brought May 31st 1860, by William B. Smith and Lydia B. Smith, his wife, against Veronica Smith. The slanderous words were alleged to have been spoken in November 1859. July 21st 1860, William Smith filed a paper, in which he directed the case to be discontinued, averring that it had been instituted without his knowledge and consent.

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1863-07-01

How this case has been cited

Cited by 8 later decisions — most recently December 1940

8 state decisions

30186318701880189019001910192019301940decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

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¶1The opinion of the court was delivered,

¶2by

Lowrie, C. J.

¶3It is divine law that a man-shall leave father and mother, and cleave to his wife, and common experience teaches the same ; and it is much to be regretted that this law was not observed by the husband in this case. It is so very often that family quarrels arise from a man’s bringing his wife to live with him in the same house with his mother and sisters, that ordinarily no amount of pecuniary economy can compensate for the risk that is run. Here it has occasioned the separation of this husband and wife, and this action of slander by the daughter-in-law against the mother-in-law, in which are exposed the failings which usually exhibit themselves in the family quarrels of people who are not unusually well trained.

¶4We cannot sustain the mode in which the case was tried. .It was error to allow the plaintiff to add a new count for another slander or for a different cause of action, after the right of action for that had been barred by the Statute of Limitations. We decided this twice very lately in cases not yet reported, and it was often so decided before: 4 Yeates 507; 6 S. & R. 295; 1 Casey 409. The new count must be struck off the record.

¶5It was error also not to sustain the plea in abatement. The pleadings are not fair samples of the abjt; but they assert and deny that a woman who has deserted her husband may sue in her own name for slander, if he refuses or neglects to support her in her separation. The pleadings present nothing but a desertion without cause, and surely this cannot give her a sole right of action, which is not allowed to a faithful wife. It would be better to allow it to her without the condition of her desertion than with it. The pleadings raise no question about the husband’s refusal to support her in this action, or about his duty in this respect. We shall not attempt to anticipate the questions that may possibly be raised by amended pleadings and a new trial; and we sincerely hope that the case may end by the husband’s cleaving to his wife instead of his mother and sisters; and yet without disaffection to these.

¶6Judgment reversed, and a new trial awarded.

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